Schaghticoke Tribal Nation, CT

A petition calling on the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs to investigate
the Bureau of Indian Affairs reversal of the Schaghticoke Tribal Nations
Federal Acknowledgment on October 12, 2005



Whereas, on January 29, 2004, after reviewing and analyzing more than 30,000 pages of documentation submitted by the Tribe, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), granted the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation (STN) Federal Acknowledgment;

Whereas, Connecticut elected officials, including the attorney general, local officials and members of the congressional delegation called upon the Secretary of the Interior to launch an investigation into the BIAs process in issuing a positive Final Determination for the Tribe;

Whereas, the Inspector General of the Interior Department exonerated the BIA and the STN of any wrong doing, but in response Connecticut Governor Jodi Rell, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, Congressmen Christopher Shays, Rob Simmons and Nancy Johnson, along with local elected officials, verbally attacked the Inspector Generals investigation and called it tainted;

Whereas, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal continued to use slanderous statements calling the BIA corrupt, lawless, and out of control and lobbied Interior Secretary Gale Norton in violation of a May 2001 court order;

Whereas, Congresswoman Nancy Johnson publicly called the STN a rag tag group and introduced a bill in Congress to terminate the Tribe in a manner reminiscent of the federal governments racist termination policy of the 1950s that stripped tribes of their cultural identity, resources, and millions of acres of ancestral lands;

Whereas, Johnson also urged a wealthy anti-Indian group, called TASK (Town Action to Save Kent) to hire a powerful Washington lobbying firm connected to the highest decision makers in the White House and other Washington power centers to help overturn the Schaghticoke Federal acknowledgment;

Whereas, there is evidence from depositions and emails that this group and its lobbyists coordinated their activities with Connecticut officials and may have violated a federal court order prohibiting contact with federal decision makers in the Schaghticoke case;

Therefore, we citizens (18 yrs or older) of the United States, hereby petition the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs to hold a hearing immediately to investigate the chain of events that led to the BIAs unprecedented action on October 12, 2005, to reverse the Schaghticoke Tribal Nations Federal Acknowledgment.